The Blue Rose

Chapter Twenty-one

Kate had hoped – anticipated, in fact – that having signed the agreement she would have been set free by now. But there was still no sign of her abductors. They had been very careful not to show their faces in all the time she had been imprisoned.

Food and other necessities were passed through the narrowly opened, quickly closed door. This happened at staggered times, often while she slept. Mercifully, they had been considerate in providing her with books, magazines and other small treats. One evening she awoke to find a small box of Black Magic chocolates by the door. She spent most of the time reading, thinking about Alex and the house or fantasizing about what she would do when the nightmare was over.

Sometimes she tricked her mind into playing out imaginary scenarios – most cast in the future, when she would be back with Alex at The Parsonage, when this wretched nightmare would be a distant memory. She always emerged from these daydreams vowing to be more attentive, more understanding, more loving when things returned to normal. She was beginning to forget what normal was like. Or whether there really was such a state.

More and more her beloved garden played a major role in these fantasies. She pictured the roses starting to fade. By now most of the old varieties doubtlessly would have finished blooming. In their place asters, Japanese anemones, chrysanthemums and other autumnal flowers would take over. Hydrangeas, too. She remembered seeing those huge mop-headed shrubs in some of the photos Mrs Cooke had shown them. It was Kate’s plan to dry a lot of those when the blooms were almost spent.

She summoned a reproachful smile. Perhaps she should have listened to Alex when he had suggested destroying the blue rose. She recalled her apprehension and prophecies when they first found the rose, how it might adversely change their life, how it could imperil their marriage. Not even in her worst dreams had she envisioned anything like the present horror. While she tried hard not to dwell on her miserable situation, she could not avoid speculating on how it would play out.

She wondered how Asp was doing. Dear little Asp. She would forever cherish the memory of the day he came into their lives in Bath, over a year ago. It could easily have been yesterday. It was a Saturday, she remembered, and Alex had disappeared early that morning without waking her. When she got up and went down to the kitchen there was a note on the table: I’ll be back around noon. Stick a bottle of champers in the fridge. XXX Alex. Shortly before twelve she heard Alex’s Alfa pull into the drive and the customary toot of the horn. She looked out of the window, watching as he got out of the car and headed for the front door. He was carrying a shallow wicker basket.

Entering the kitchen, he was all smiles. ‘Here, Kate,’ he said, handing her the basket as if it were filled with new-laid eggs.

As she took it from him she thought she saw something move under the plaid cloth that concealed its contents. She gave Alex a quizzical look and slowly pulled the cloth aside.

Curled in a tight ball was a tiny puppy. As she gently caressed its velvety fur, it stretched, yawned, and started licking her finger. Then the tears started to roll slowly down her cheeks.

‘What do you think?’ Alex asked, grinning ear to ear. ‘It’s a boy, by the way.’

‘I don’t know what to say, Alex,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘He’s lovely. Does he have a name?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What made you–’

‘I thought a lot about what we discussed Wednesday evening, about selling the house and moving farther out. For some reason I couldn’t imagine us living in the country without a dog. I was going to wait for your birthday but I decided not to hold off. I saw the ad two days ago and decided to go for it.’ He smiled. ‘If you’re not sure about taking on a new responsibility, he comes with return privileges, by the way.’

‘Oh, no, Alex, he’s lovely. Let’s keep him.’

He took the basket from Kate, put it on the floor, and picked up the puppy, holding its wet pink nose up close to his. ‘We’ve got to think of a name for you, young feller,’ he said, gently lowering the puppy to the floor. They had watched it waddle unsteadily under the table where it proceeded to make a small puddle…

The quick creak of the door opening brought her back to the present. She turned just in time to see a small stack of magazines being placed on the floor. As quickly as it had opened, the door closed again, and she heard the bolt slide into place. She hoped that the selection was better than the last time. Most of them had been hunting, fishing and hotrod magazines.

She had thought long and hard about her abductors. Who were they? The only outsiders she could think of who knew about the rose were the American and Tanaka. Could it possibly be one of them? What did it matter, anyway?

She wondered if Alex had called the police. She knew that was very unlikely. Whoever had taken her would have found ways to dissuade Alex from doing so. She preferred not to think about it. She knew only too well that threatening bodily harm to the victim was the method most often used. It was very doubtful now that the police were going to come to her rescue. And, short of his somehow recovering Sapphire, she had come to the inescapable truth that Alex was powerless to help. He had signed the agreement, after all. In any case, he had no way of knowing where she was. Neither did she for that matter. It was impossible to imagine what must be going through his mind.

Thinking back to the blue rose, she recalled the cuttings Vicky had taken, but couldn’t quite figure out their role in the equation. Surely the people trying to get their hands on the rose knew all about horticulture and wouldn’t accept cuttings without the rose itself. She also knew enough about propagation from cuttings to know that the resulting plants ran true to form. Grown on their own roots, they would produce flowers identical to the parent. But this was no ordinary rose. It was a mutant. And who was to say that the cuttings would produce blue roses? In any case, it would be quite some time before the cuttings produced blossoms of any kind.

She had concluded by now that her only hope of escape rested with herself. And up to a couple of days ago, that eventuality had seemed remote. She now knew that these men were not amateurs. They were serious and thorough. They had rendered the farmhouse escape-proof and her room as secure as a prison cell. But two days ago she had discovered something they’d overlooked. It presented a slender chance of escape.

The muted sounds of screeching tyres and gunfire from the television downstairs filtered into the room, disturbing her train of thought. Not that she minded. The noise meant that she could safely get back to the job at hand. Her captors’ reluctance to enter her room worked in her favour. Had they chosen to examine her minuscule bathroom they would undoubtedly have noticed that two-thirds of the wood moulding had been removed from the tiny fixed window above the toilet that served no function other than to provide light. She could only conclude that they’d somehow overlooked the window in their effort to make the room secure – the curtain was, after all, similar in colour to the wallpaper. There was one small problem however – she was not quite sure whether it was big enough for her to wriggle through. It was going to be close.

With just a little more scraping, Kate would be able to pop it out.

In the beamed living room of the farmhouse, her two abductors were in shirtsleeves. Billy, the taller and younger, was stretched out on the overstuffed sofa reading a paperback. His sallow face was pockmarked, suggesting a poor diet and lax habits. Marcus – balding and dressed all in black – stood by the window, talking on a cordless phone. His speech, though American, hinted of European origins.

‘No. She’s fine,’ said Marcus. ‘Sleeps and reads around the clock.’ He looked up to the ceiling, eyeing the network of hairline cracks that spidered across the yellowing plaster like an aerial road map. ‘Of course we’re feeding her.’ He stared out of the window, listening to the caller. ‘Okay, so eleven thirty it is. Right, British Airways. Don’t worry, I’ll be there. I’ll call to check that your flight’s on time.’ Another short pause. ‘Sheppard? No – he hasn’t. Nothing unusual, except that professor guy has been staying with him. Billy’s keeping an eye on them, don’t worry.’ Marcus yawned. ‘Sure, I will. Okay. See you soon. Yes, I’ll tell him.’

He turned the phone off and walked to the small TV set. He switched it on manually – they’d not been able to find a remote. Billy figured the set was so old it never had one in the first place. Marcus settled into the large upholstered armchair, put his feet on the coffee table, and stared blankly at a programme on polar bears.

Billy looked up from his paperback. ‘Wolff’s finally coming over, then,’ he said, in a Texas drawl.

Marcus got up and walked toward the door. ‘Yes, he’s on his way. I’m going pick him up at Heathrow tomorrow morning. Now that the agreement’s signed, Ira wants to see the rose.’

‘I thought Ira told you Sheppard don’t know where the rose is.’

‘He did. But Ira’s convinced that Sheppard’s playing “find the lady”. That it was really him who took it to another hiding place.’

‘What if Sheppard’s not lying?’

‘Damned if I know. Let Ira worry about that. He tells me he’s finished playing footsie with him – now it’s hardball time. He’s sure that Sheppard’s gonna crack any day now. Meantime, Ira wants us to keep up the surveillance on Sheppard and the house. He thinks that sooner or later Sheppard’ll get careless and lead us to the rose.’

‘You know Marcus, this is turning out to be a full-time job. I’d figured it for ten days at the most. I’m dying of boredom in this stinking place. The shitty weather. When are we going get the hell out of here?’

‘Jesus, Billy. You ask the dumbest questions. You couldn’t have heard a goddamned word I’ve been saying. How do I know, for Chrissakes! Ask Wolff tomorrow. Ask him yourself!’

‘All right. All right.’

‘Oh, by the way, Ira said to thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘Doing a clean job of snatching the Sheppards’ file. Made things a lot easier, he said. Filled in a lot of blanks.’

‘Weren’t exactly what I would call challenging,’ Billy drawled. ‘Any punk kid could have walked in there and stole the file.’

Kingston was up again at dawn. Since Kate’s kidnapping he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep and it was beginning to take its toll. He let Asp out into the garden through the back door, then went to retrieve the morning newspaper from the front porch. Back in the house, he made a pot of tea.

He yawned and placed the folded newspaper and his favourite retractable pencil – the one with the pink eraser on the end of it – on the table beside him. He always used a pencil when tackling the Times crossword puzzle. Corrections were all too frequent. Exactly when he had first started doing them – when he first got hooked – he couldn’t say. Spending the start of the day with a cup of tea and the puzzle was a ritual. Rarely, very rarely, was the pattern broken. But for the last several days it had been. And he was becoming increasingly worried. He simply could no longer concentrate.

Every hour of every day he was alone was spent thinking of the suffering that the blue rose had inflicted on so many lives. And the harder he tried to make sense of it all, the more unfathomable the riddles became. In his now frequent dreams they twisted and writhed like slippery serpents, one minute almost in his grasp, the next, morphing into new forms, coiling into grotesque shapes, always disappearing through closed doors.

With Alex’s refusal to involve the police – and he could well understand Alex’s fear of doing so – the burden now fell squarely on him to find a way to secure Kate’s release and put her kidnappers behind bars. Unless he found the rose, none of this would happen. Worse, what would Wolff do to Kate if he didn’t? He’d rather not think about that eventuality.

He glanced up at the kitchen clock. Six forty-five. In a few hours the forty-eight hour deadline would be up and they could expect another call from Wolff ’s accomplice. God knows what horrors that would bring.

He reached for the folded Times and, without thinking, opened it to the crossword section, placing the rest of the paper aside. He stared at the tiny grid of black and white squares, pondering the thousands of them that had challenged his sense of logic and reasoning over so many years.

With a cryptic crossword, unlike a conventional crossword, one’s bank of general knowledge is of little help; the solver must wrestle with construing the clues correctly to extract literal meaning from clever camouflage. What makes them so challenging and often frustrating, is that all the clues are couched in varying forms of disguised anagrams, cryptograms, phonetic puzzles, and cunning plays on words. Teasing out the answers is a job for an analytical, not a fact-filled mind.

He stared at the puzzle. Not reading but just staring. He thought back to the day he first saw the rose. How beautiful it was, how seductive. And now, in such a short time, what havoc it had wrought. A twisted trail of heartache and tragedy.

After all this time, after the hours of sifting through notes, creating timelines, analysing, reconstructing conversations, they were still no nearer to finding answers. He must have overlooked something – a subtle clue, a misspoken word. Or was he simply trying too hard, overlooking the obvious? Think of the enigma of the blue rose in the same way you would a cryptic clue. No, that would be absurd, he said to himself. But his mind was already in motion, stimulated and challenged by the very idea of it.

Methodically, he started with the ‘players’. He got a notepad and wrote down their names – one at the top of each successive page. This, in part, was similar to the exercise he and Alex had exhausted yesterday but he was determined to try again and keep trying, if needs be. There were nine names in all: himself, Kate and Alex, Vicky, Tanaka, Adell, Mrs Cooke, Graham and Wolff. Had he overlooked anybody? Not that he could think of. The police, perhaps? No, they were too busy looking for a killer to be interested in a stolen rose. Besides, they weren’t even aware that Kate was missing.

Starting from the day of Kate’s first phone call, he matched each so-called player with incidents linking them to the rose. These he wrote underneath each name. It took him nearly an hour to write everything down. When the list was complete, he went over each page, retracing every incident, cross-referencing every encounter and reviewing every known conversation. It took him the best part of another hour before he had gone through all nine pages. When he crossed off the last name, he was no wiser than he was when he started. ‘Damn!’ he muttered.

Engrossed in the task, he had completely forgotten about Alex. Where in hell was he? He would give him another ten minutes, then go and hammer on his bedroom door.

He got up and went to the sink, filling the kettle to make a fresh pot of tea. Back at the table he skimmed through his notes one more time, finally putting them aside. He got up and climbed the stairs to wake Alex.

Ten minutes later they faced each other across the kitchen table as Alex nursed a cup of coffee.

‘Sleep at all?’ asked Kingston.

‘Not much, no.’

‘We’ll see about getting you some sleeping pills today.’

‘What’s all this bumf, then?’ Alex asked, rubbing his eyes and picking up one of the torn-off pages of Kingston’s scribblings.

‘That “bumf” is the result of a good two hours’ worth of intense brainstorming, conceptualizing and deductive reasoning, I’ll have you know.’

‘Did you come up with anything?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Kingston replied with a feeble shake of the head.

Alex regarded Kingston with bloodshot eyes cushioned with dark puffy bags. His skin was the colour and texture of putty. Even his usually shiny hair was lacklustre and straggly. ‘We’ve probably got until noon. And that’s it,’ Alex said, with the despair of a condemned prisoner praying for an eleventh-hour reprieve from the Home Office. Absently he turned over the front section of the newspaper, pushing it, aimlessly, from side to side.

Kingston watched, not quite knowing what to say. He caught a glimpse of the newspaper headline: Brighton Nursing Home Scandal Widens.

‘Brighton.’

‘What?’ said Kingston confused by Alex’s odd comment.

Alex was staring out the window. ‘That’s right,’ he muttered.

‘What?’

‘It was something that Adell said. The first time we met him. Maybe I didn’t mention it to you at the time.’

‘What, Alex? What?’

‘He mentioned that their firm represented a rose grower near Brighton.’

Kingston was on his feet. ‘God! This could be the break we’ve been hoping for, Alex. The connection is too much of a coincidence. Did he mention any names? Think hard, Alex.’

‘I don’t recall. I don’t think so.’

‘Alex, don’t you see – there’s more than a fifty-fifty chance that that’s where the rose is right now. The connection is perfect.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Think about it.’ He wagged his forefinger at Alex as he spoke. ‘All along, you and Kate, and Vicky, of course – for obvious reasons – have nurtured Sapphire like a newborn baby.’

‘That’s true,’ said Alex.

‘And we know that whoever took the rose knows of her astronomical value.’

Alex nodded.

‘That being the case, they, too, will make damned sure that she continues to receive the same kind of mollycoddling. They’re sure as hell not going to run even the slightest risk of letting her shrivel up and die, are they?’

‘No, they’re not.’

‘I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before. Wherever the rose is sequestered must be a location where she can get proper expert horticultural care–’

‘Like a place that specializes in roses. Adell’s client’s place.’

‘Exactly, Alex.’

Kingston paced the kitchen. ‘We’ve got to get to Adell immediately.’

Alex frowned. ‘Surely he wouldn’t have stolen the rose, would he? A solicitor?’

‘We can’t be certain, but lawyers have been known to commit serious crimes – including murder, I might add. In any case, I’m not suggesting that he stole it, that he did the whole thing single-handed. But I can almost guarantee you that he is somehow involved. It all fits.’

Alex’s expression quickly darkened. ‘If you’re right, and Adell is directly or indirectly culpable, I’ll see to it that the son of a bitch is disbarred,’ he said, through clenched teeth. ‘What a bastard!’

‘Slow down a bit, Alex. It’s only a theory, you know. Let’s not rush our fences.’

Kingston glanced at the clock. ‘If we leave right now we could be up in town by eleven. We’ll just have to chance his being there. I don’t think we want to deal with this on the phone.’

‘What if Wolff calls?’

‘He’ll have to leave a message.’

‘Why don’t we leave one?’

‘A message?’

‘On the answering machine. Record a new greetings message. Instead of saying, sorry we missed your call and wait for the beep, record a new message saying that we think we know where the rose is and that we’ll call back later this afternoon. At least we’d be buying some time.’

‘Clever idea, Alex. Let’s just hope that we’re right about Adell and his rose grower friend.’

‘We’d better be. God, we’d better be.’

Adell was clearly flummoxed when Alex and Kingston showed up at his office unannounced. ‘This is a surprise, Alex,’ he said, taking his eyes off Alex momentarily to size up Kingston. ‘What brings you two here?’

‘We need to talk about something that can’t wait. It’s serious.’ Alex turned toward Kingston. ‘Oh, this is a friend of mine, Dr Lawrence Kingston.’

‘Ah yes, the fellow who’s been helping you with the rose,’ Adell said, extending his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, doctor, at last.’

‘Likewise,’ said Kingston, shaking his hand.

‘Well, come on in. I have a client due shortly but I can spare a few minutes.’

He ushered them into his office where they sat at Adell’s desk.

‘So, just what is it that can’t wait?’ asked Adell, sliding into his black leather chair. He looked at Alex, then back to Kingston. ‘You look upset. Is something wrong, gentlemen?’

‘Very wrong,’ Alex replied.

‘What’s this all about?’ Adell asked, putting on his glasses, regarding them across the large expanse of desk.

Alex looked directly at Adell. ‘Well, to start with, you can forget about the auction.’

‘What?’

‘We no longer have the blue rose. It’s been stolen.’

‘Stolen! My God, this is a disaster. The auction–’

‘You’ll have to cancel it.’

‘I can’t, for Christ’s sake! It’s too late.’ Adell put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he sighed.

‘Well, you’d better,’ said Alex. ‘That’s not all. Lately, things have turned very nasty.’

‘What do you mean by nasty?’

‘You’re already aware of the tragic business with Graham Cooke, so I won’t go into that. But other incidents connected to the rose, incidents you’re not aware of, now pose a serious threat – a threat to a number of people. To the point where their lives could be in jeopardy.’

‘Serious threat to people’s lives? What are you talking about, Alex?’

‘I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. Since this rose came into our lives, there’s been nothing but trouble – serious trouble. What if I were to tell you that we know of four people who may have died because of this damned rose.’

‘Died! Oh, come–’

‘Yes, died,’ Alex interrupted. ‘They’re dead. We’re convinced that more will follow. Lawrence and I have been over every inch of this cursed rose business time and time again and keep coming back to the same place.’ He stared at Adell without blinking. ‘We come back to here,’ he barked. He slapped his hand loudly on the desk. ‘To your office.’

‘Now wait a moment–’

Kingston didn’t let him finish. ‘From the very beginning, we believe word of the blue rose was leaked by you. You told somebody who stood to gain from its sale.’

Adell shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his darting eyes signalling that he was now very much on the defensive. ‘Perhaps you’re not familiar with the confidentiality required of me by the lawyer-client privilege,’ he said, striving to gain the upper hand.

‘Screw your privilege,’ Alex snapped. ‘It’s too late for that. For God’s sake, who did you tell about the rose? Who got our file? Who was it?’

‘Just calm down, Alex. I don’t know who stole your file. It’s never showed up. So let’s not get into a shouting match. We’ll discuss this civilly, if you don’t mind.’

‘Go on, then,’ said Alex.

Adell licked his lips nervously. ‘You remember, I told you from the start that it would be impossible to prevent news of the rose from filtering down through the industry and eventually to the press. I must say, I’m very surprised that the media hasn’t picked up on it yet.’

‘I know full well what you predicted – but who did you tell?’ asked Alex.

‘Let me finish,’ Adell answered, massaging his temples. He was obviously buying the time to choose his words carefully. ‘I’ll try to explain. Alex,’ he said at last. ‘it was the letter you forwarded to me that got me thinking.’

‘The letter from Tanaka?’ asked Alex.

‘Yes, the chap who wanted the rose for his client in Japan. I was about to respond by telling him politely not to call you again, that he would have to wait for the auction and hold up his bidding card just like everybody else. Then it occurred to me…’ He took off his glasses, put them on the desk and rubbed his eyes, ‘that this might present the perfect opportunity for me to do Charlie Compton a favour. He’s a client of mine. Runs a rose-growing business down in Sussex, Compton and Sons. I told you about him when you and Kate were last here, do you remember?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Alex. ‘Near Brighton, you said.’

‘Right. Our firm did work for his father way back, before my time. Patent stuff, mostly. The company’s not big, by any means – quite small actually. Charlie’s been going through a rough patch this last year or so. Between you and me, they’ve been having trouble lately meeting the payroll. Like a lot of industries, the big boys are getting bigger and the competition more cut-throat.’ He took a breath. ‘Then along comes Tanaka’s letter.’

Kingston flashed Alex a sly look, at the same time giving his leg a gentle kick behind the cover of the desk.

‘Go on. What happened next?’ asked Alex.

Adell toyed with his glasses. ‘If Tanaka was successful in bidding for the rose, I thought he would need somebody to handle the logistics of moving it: transplanting, shipping, all that kind of stuff. With the high stakes involved, that had to be undertaken by somebody who knew roses. It was out of the question for Charlie’s company to consider bidding for the rose at auction, but I saw no harm in telling Tanaka to contact him. It wasn’t like I was giving Charlie preferential treatment. He just couldn’t be a player. But if he hooked up with Tanaka, he could be a valuable asset. My guess was that he would probably make quite a chunk of money out of such an arrangement.’ He cleared his throat, nervously. ‘Well, I faxed Tanaka and told him about Charlie. Suggested that the two might be able to work something out that could be mutually beneficial. Only if Tanaka was successful in acquiring the rose, of course. Naturally, I couldn’t be involved in any part of it. I made that perfectly clear. That’s about the sum of it, I guess,’ he said, clasping his hands together.

‘So, they got together?’

‘Yes. Charlie called me later and told me so. That’s all I know.’

‘If Tanaka had our address, chances are he gave it to Compton, too.’

‘Well…’ Adell fumbled for the right words. ‘I assume he must have because – yes, I remember, now – Compton told me at the time that he wanted to meet you and Kate, Alex. He was very excited about the prospect.’

‘So Compton knew early on that we owned the rose – where we lived, too – the whole story,’ said Alex.

Adell ignored his comment. ‘I told Charlie I’d breached ethical boundaries in telling him. That he must respect that, and not bring up the subject of the rose again. To the best of my knowledge he kept that promise.’ He straightened, and put his glasses in their case, as if to indicate that the conversation was about to end. ‘In any case, just because he knew about the rose hardly means he stole it.’

‘Forgive me,’ Kingston said, interrupting. ‘Your Mr Compton seems to me to be far and away our most likely suspect. There’s only one other candidate but for reasons I won’t go into we’re ruling him out for the moment.’

‘We must to talk to Compton,’ Alex snapped. ‘Lives could be at stake here.’

‘Even his,’ said Kingston.

Adell snorted. ‘Come on, aren’t you exaggerating a bit?’

Alex and Kingston exchanged looks. ‘I’m afraid not and I’ll tell you why,’ said Kingston. ‘Alex and I have discovered something else about this ravishing beauty of a rose. It’s hiding a dirty little secret.’

Adell looked even more confused. He chuckled, nervously. ‘A dirty little secret? Like what?’

‘It seems the rose is highly toxic,’ Alex said. ‘Deadly. I’ve already told you that it’s been responsible for the deaths of four people we know of. There could be more, for all we know.’ He waited for the stunned expression to register fully on Adell’s face. ‘If we don’t find the rose, very soon,’ he said, ‘there will be more deaths.’

‘If the thorns of that rose draw blood,’ Kingston interjected, ‘death follows within seventy-two hours.’

‘How in hell did you find out that the rose was toxic?’

‘It’s too long a story, right now, I’m afraid. But believe us, that rose can kill.’ Alex replied. ‘And quickly, I might add.’

Adell remained silent as he weighed Alex’s words.

‘You can see, now, why we must find that rose,’ Kingston said in a measured voice. ‘Why you must help us.’